Spread Fire in Me
by DreamsAreMyWords
Summary: Quinntana Week 2014 Day 1: Quinntana Begins. When Quinn Fabray and her best friend Mike Chang are kidnapped by a group of people who call themselves the Revenants and Quinn makes the discovery that her entire life has been a lie, the intriguing Santana Lopez is there to annoy and strangely enough, help her, as she stumbles into the startling truth. I may add more, but it can stand.
1. Chapter I: Fucking Butterflies

**_A/U: Hiya readers. So I know this is totally late, but it's been a crazy past few weeks for me, so I'm just glad I was able to post this, as my Day 1 of Quinntana Week 2014. Hopefully at some point I'll be able to write the other days, but who knows. Oh well._**

**_Anyways, down to business:_**

_**Pairing: Quinntana (obviously), Fabang friendship, Britpucktana friendship, etc**_

_**Word Count: 13,396**_

**_Summary: Quinn has grown up living a carefree life full of fun and more money than she knew what to do with, growing up alongside her best friend and the very talented dancer, Mike Chang. Then the two find themselves kidnapped by a group of masked people who call themselves the Revenants. It's imprisoned in their headquarters that Quinn learns she isn't who she thinks she is, and Santana Lopez is there to help her on the journey to discovering her identity._**

**_Leave some reviews to let me know what you think, and enjoy!_**

**_Happy Quinntana week! (shhh I know I'm late)_**

* * *

Pale orange light poured in through the chink in the heavy red curtains drawn over the windows in my bedroom. The light crawled over my legs first, tangled and twisted up in the thin silk bed sheets, before rising higher and higher, flowing over my sleeping form to land on my face, bleeding red through my eyelids and making me wake with a start.

My eyes were difficult to open; they clung together in heavy black clumps, sticky with the residue of a night perhaps better left forgotten. My hair was a matted disarray of wild blonde tresses, and my body was achingly sore as I pushed myself up onto my elbows, blowing my fringe out of my eyes before I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, wavering until finding my balance. I cringed at the sour taste in the back of my throat, and at the bitter, sharp pungency of alcohol permeating the air. My head throbbed, seemingly in vindictive glee over my displeasure as I remembered last night.

"Ugh, _God_," I moaned, and fell back onto the bed.

I didn't bother going ahead and checking my purse for the wad of bills that I knew weren't there. I flinched as I imagined what my father's reaction would be when he discovered that I had went out again, for the third time in the past week, and had again, for the third time in the past week, blown through my allowance. The other two times, it had been spent mostly on drinks. This time, however, I could vaguely recall, in random snippets of pumping music and flashing dance lights, that I had been screaming in raucous laughter as I tossed bill after bill at my best friend as he twirled around and around on a pole as half-naked woman shook their behinds around him. _Oh, Jesus._ Hopefully my father wouldn't find out about _that._

I sighed as I rolled over in bed, and absently fingered a stray feather poking out of a pillow. My phone vibrated from where it was perched haphazardly on the dresser. I had probably thrown it there when I stumbled into the house in my intoxicated state last night. It buzzed again, but I ignored it. I knew it was Mike, just calling to check up on me. Actually, strike that, he probably wasn't calling to check on me, he was probably calling to see whether or not I wanted to grab lunch before we prepared to head back into town for the night. If the pounding of my head was any indication, I thought I'd had enough of partying for one week.

Of course, no sooner had I thought that did my door burst open with a loud bang as it rebounded against the wall. I jumped and cursed profusely, but that did nothing to hinder Mike, who only stood laughing with eyes I knew must be crinkled and sparkling behind black sunglasses.

Mike Chang Jr. had been my best friend since we were seven years old and during one sunny recess, fell in mutual love over our obsession with ballet. After a few days of chattering excitedly about everything we had in common (we were the richest kids in class, coincidentally), we had our parents put us in the same ballet class. Over the course of the next fifteen years, we were inseparable, "as thick as thieves," in the words of my father. It came as a shock to everyone when we decided to go our separate ways after high school, but it made sense to us. Mike, who had always easily been the best dancer in class, was insanely talented, so getting a full-ride scholarship to Joffrey Ballet Academy of Dance was as natural as breathing to him. I managed to get a partial scholarship to Yale, and was currently enrolled to finish my senior year next semester, graduating with a degree in Drama. Being hundreds of miles apart was hard, but we still texted every day, and spoke to one another on the phone at least once a week. And when Spring, Christmas and Summer Breaks rolled around, we were back to being glued at the hips.

Presently, it was summer, thus the partying three times a week. I didn't think I could take any more of it, to be perfectly honest. We weren't as young as we used to be—even though twenty-two was still pretty young. I squinted up at Mike, appearing all handsome and chipper in his fashionable suit, with his carefully coifed hair and his blindingly white smile. Most of my other friends (my female ones in particular) were enamored with Mike, and I could see why. He was Asian, he was kind, he was hilarious, he was very attractive, he could dance like no one's business, he was smart, and he was the cutest dork ever, not to mention filthy rich. But I just didn't see him that way. I couldn't imagine myself being…intimate, with him. He was _Mike_. I knew that was a flimsy excuse, especially considering the fact that it was no secret that he wouldn't be opposed to being more than friends with me. He had asked me out on more than one occasion, but I always turned him down. I had shot down his advances so many times that my worn-down "I don't want to ruin our friendship" excuse was no longer believable, and I was terrified of what other reason I could give him, because the reality was not nearly believable enough. _I'm not attracted to you_—because after all, how could anyone not be attracted to Michael Chang Jr. ? But the truth was, _I_ didn't even understand why even the thought of kissing him made my stomach turn, or why imagining sleeping with him made me feel cold and nauseous. Any girl would be lucky to have him, so I didn't understand why I was the one that could, and I didn't want any part of it. It was a question that had plagued me for so long that I actively tried not to think about it.

He grinned at the withering scowl I gave him, lifting up his peace offering—a tray of coffee, and judging by the holes where two missing cups were supposed to go, I assume he'd already delivered to my mother and to Sarah, the maid.

"Ugh, give it here then," I huffed, and snatched my coffee from his hand.

Mike sat down on the foot of my bed as I curled up at the head of it. "Now that you're up, do you want—"

"No," I said shortly, cutting him off before he could finish. His grin didn't falter, and when I lifted my eyebrows in warning, glaring at him over the rim of my mocha-Carmel coffee, he waggled his own.

"Kurt's going to be there."

I nearly spewed my coffee out; Mike thumped me on the back as I coughed, my eyes streaming as I struggled to regain some semblance of a normal breathing pattern. Finally, I managed to rasp, "What? Kurt Hummel?"

"No. Kurt Russel," said Mike somberly, and I glared at him again. He laughed. "Yes, Kurt Hummel. What other Kurt do we know?"

"Oh my God," I exclaimed, incredulous at the thought. "I haven't seen him in—years. I don't think I've seen him since we were in high school. Why is he in town?"

Mike shrugged. "He didn't say. He just Facebook messaged me and asked if we were doing anything tonight, then asked if we wanted to meet for a drink and catch up."

"Wow," I breathed, sitting back against the headboard of my bed. Kurt Hummel. Mike and I became friends with Kurt when we were nine, and Kurt joined our ballet class. He had just moved to the city, which at the time, Kurt said was because his father was opening up a new tire shop, though we later found out it was actually because his mother was moving into the hospital for her cancer treatments. Mrs. Chang later told Mike and I that Kurt had lied probably because he didn't want us to treat him any differently. But for that year, we had merely assumed what Kurt said was true, because why wouldn't we? It wasn't until his mother died and he moved away that our dance instructor, Ms. July, told the class the truth, and we all wrote Kurt a sorry-for-your-loss card that she mailed for us. Mike and I didn't hear from Kurt until a few years later, when we were sixteen and we ran into him at a coffee shop that he worked in at Sand Springs, Oklahoma, when Mike and I went to Tulsa with our dads (who worked together for the same law firm) for a couple weeks. It had been a weird coincidence we were all delighted by, and the three of us became Facebook-friends, and since then had sporadically emailed over the years. If we were being truthful here, I hadn't thought of Kurt in a couple years. But the fact that the last time I saw him was at my graduation party directly after my senior year of high school and he'd said something to me that was particularly…unsettling, made me really, really interested in seeing him again—not only to catch up with him, but to find out in person exactly what he'd meant to me by that irritating little comment he'd made that stuck with me even now, almost four years later.

"Alright," I decided. Mike's face lit up at the prospect of going out again. I didn't know how he did it; he was even more of a lightweight than _me_. "Let's go, then. Where did he want to meet?"

"The Bridge," answered Mike, as he stood up to follow me into my walk-in closet.

"That little bar on 71st that's always empty?" I inquired, turning to flash Mike a puzzled frown over my shoulder.

Mike nodded. "Yep." He shrugged. "Guess he wants somewhere quiet that we can talk.

"I guess," I said dubiously, shaking my head at Kurt's taste in bars. Nevertheless, I picked out my best dress, a sleek, smooth silvery fabric that shimmered whenever it moved, and draped it over Mike's waiting arm. After fifteen years of this, he knew the drill.

"We're totally still hitting Avenu Shade after, right?"

I sighed, my insatiable thirst for something to do other than waste away at this huge mansion listening to my mother bitch about my father finally getting the best of me. "I hate you, Michael Chang."

Mike chuckled from behind me. "It's not nice to lie, Lucy Fabray."

* * *

Kurt was waiting for us at an isolated table placed in one of the more shadowy corners of the bar, huddled close with a stranger with dark, slicked-back hair and a charming smile. He greeted Mike and I warmly, and had no reservations about tightly clasping our hands to shake, while Kurt seemed a little nervous and cool towards us. When Kurt's voice shook as he introduced us to Blaine, his fiancé of two years, Mike and I exchanged a look as we slid into our chairs.

"Are you feeling okay, Kurt?" I questioned as I pulled my coat off.

Kurt nodded immediately, though he overdid it. I frowned as he finally stilled himself after nodding five times. Blanching at Mike and I's confused silence, Kurt's eyes widened and he burst out, "No, no, I—I'm not. It—it's the…anniversary of m—my mother's death today."

My stomach clenched as my eyes widened. "Oh, God, Kurt, I—I'm so sorry, I completely…" My voice trailed off feebly; I watched helplessly as an ashen-faced Kurt was drawn into Blaine's embrace. Blaine smiled apologetically at us, holding his boyfriend against his chest as he rubbed his back consolingly. Mike and I were both at a loss for words. I had no idea that today was the anniversary of Kurt losing his mother to Breast Cancer, and I had no earthly idea why he would choose this day of all days to meet up with a couple of old friends for drinks. It made no sense to me, and I was so shaken up and uncomfortable that I couldn't even grasp the proper thought-process to wonder why, so I merely flagged over a waitress and ordered a round of drinks for the table.

"It—It's okay," sniffed Kurt after a time, coming up from Blaine's chest with skin so white it looked as though he could use a few cheeseburgers, let alone a couple drinks in his system. "I just—I didn't want to bring it up, make everything uncomfortable, but it's hard."

Mike and I both nodded sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Kurt," said Mike sincerely, and I nodded again to echo my agreement with him.

"It's fine, it's fine. Just…pretend that didn't just happen." Kurt sat up straighter, waving away the words as though it wiped them clean from our minds. "So," he began, his voice turning hesitant again. He glanced anxiously at Blaine, who only smiled serenely back at him, before continuing. "How have you guys been? How's…how's life treating ya?" The last question seemed almost desperate, as though Kurt was struggling to remain nonchalant about this whole situation. I didn't understand why. If he was really upset, he should just go home. It was honestly no big deal.

Mike, who forever remained immeasurably tactless compared to me, beamed as he began to speak of his dance school. Kurt listened to him with a blank face, while a strange intensity was fixed onto Blaine's. Though I kept my face carefully composed into a pleasant expression, as I sipped on my glass of wine, I was wondering what the hell was off about those two. My gut was telling me that something wasn't right, but I couldn't put my finger on it. They were just…weird. Kurt wasn't that weird normally. The last time I saw him, he was all smiles and beaming as he toasted me at my high school grad party. Now, he was nervously clasping his hands together as he pretended to listen to Mike, his eyes unfocused and the corners of his mouth trembling. If it really were because of his mother, wouldn't he have picked a different day to meet us? Or was I just totally overthinking this whole thing?

"How about you, Lucy?" asked Blaine, turning his unnervingly intense gaze onto me once Mike finished speaking. Blaine took a deliberately small sip of his wine, never taking his eyes off me. They were a different hazel than mine, a darker brown. "I've heard you attend Yale? That's impressive."

I dipped my head in gracious acknowledgment. "Thank you. Yes, I'm about to be a senior there."

Blaine's thick brows furrowed in innocent interest that didn't seem at all good-intentioned to me. "And you're a…drama major. Right?"

I nodded again, taking another drink. I watched him for a second, tipping my half-empty glass back and forth and listening to the red wine quietly splash against the sides, before I decided to change the subject onto him. I really knew nothing about this Blaine, and he seemed shady already. How did I know he wasn't some asshole working for the man my father was running against, trying to screw me over to aid in taking out my dad? As the thought struck me, I gripped my glass more tightly. "Who are you?" I asked forthright.

For the first time this evening, Blaine's serene composure broke, and he leaned back, appearing slightly startled. What little color the wine had given to Kurt drained out again as his pink-tinged cheeks turned white, and he stared at me like a deer caught in headlights. I kept my gaze on Blaine, calm and curious, even though inside, my thoughts were steamrolling through my head, panic seeping into me. What if this Blaine was a reporter? I had seen pictures of him before, from whatever Kurt posted on Facebook that appeared on my newsfeed. There had never been anything to indicate he was in journalism, but this was just…weird. What if he knew about the office my father was planning on running for? What if he was here to dig up information on Russel Fabray's rich, partying daughter?

After a pregnant pause during which Mike repeatedly looked back and forth between the three of us, Blaine cleared his throat. "What do you mean by that?" he said, his voice judiciously composed.

My spidey senses were tingling. _God, I've been around Mike too much, if I'm starting to quote Spider-Man._

Equally collected, I said evenly, "Who are you? All I know about you is your name and the fact that you're engaged to my friend and have been dating him for around two years. How did you meet? Where are you from? What brings the two of you…" My gaze shifted and lingered on Kurt, who fidgeted in his seat, appearing terrified. "To Connecticut?"

Blaine relaxed almost immediately, his face splitting into a charismatic beam. "Well, I'm from Wisconsin, actually," he said brightly. "Kurt and I met in high school, during the Show Choir Nationals in…. San Antonio, wasn't it?" Kurt nodded slowly, still pallid as he peered intently down into his untouched glass of wine. "I went to an all-boys academy, and it was our third time Championship."

"Your school lost, huh?" asked Mike teasingly, grinning at Kurt. Kurt looked up, a wide smile fixed on his face that didn't quite meet his eyes. Again, he only nodded.

"I asked him for his number, and we texted off and on for the next two years. He was a grade above me, and so it took me a year longer to join him in New York, where, as you know, he was an intern at Vogue. I joined NYADA, and asked him out for coffee one afternoon, and he agreed, and it just…" Blaine shrugged, and though I was still suspicious, I had to begrudgingly admit that his smile appeared genuine now. "Just kind of snowballed from there. We started officially dating a month later, and here we are now."

I tilted my head, fluttering my lashes as I said sweetly, "That's cute. But you still didn't answer one question." Blaine's brows furrowed again. "_Why_ are you _here_?" I repeated.

Blaine opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Kurt spurt out in an overtly loud voice, "We—what do you mean, what a stupid question, why are we here? Because—because my mom, she would've—she would've wanted me to come see friends, and…and you guys are my friends, so—so that's why we came here, to see you, not for anything weird or anything, I mean—just friends catching up, of course," he said in one rushed breath, and ended it with a breathy, nervous laugh that seemed to echo around the table, as Mike frowned at Kurt in confusion, Kurt gaped at me, and Blaine and I glowered at one another.

I leaned forward and said in a lowered tone, "Do you _really _want to start something with my father? Because he's really good at making people like you, _disappear_."

The result was pandemonium. One moment, I was slanting across the table, clutching my empty glass of wine in one hand and using the other to balance myself. The next, the entire table was being toppled over, my glass shattered between my hand and the floor, someone's hand had a fistful of my hair, and another hand shoved hard at my chest, pushing me back. I heard a scream from the only other person in the entire bar, the barmaid behind the counter, before it was cut off. I heard a shriek that sounded like it came from Kurt's high-pitched alto, and I heard a grunt right in my ear that was definitely Mike, and the hand in my hair loosened its grip before falling out completely. A loud bang rang through the air, and there was a hissing noise before white smoke clouded through the dimly lit building in voluminous billows, and then shouting that I realized was coming from Blaine.

"She…self-aware!" I heard two disconnected words before there was a roaring sound, a wail, and then utter silence.

I lay frozen, blood dripping from the one long gash that extended from the bottom left of my palm and curved around to the back of my middle knuckle, and the multiple tiny cuts that crisscrossed the skin of my palm. The smoke that hung in the air seemed to settle, and I coughed as I lifted my head and surveyed the damage. The table we had sat at was strewn in splinters all over the room, and the other furniture was broken and in pieces too. Plates and glasses were in shards on the floor, and two of the front windows were shattered.

A groan that sounded next to me pulled me out of my shock, and I turned to see Mike lying on his back, the entirety of his torso stained with blood, beaming holly-bright from the huge patch of red on the front of his white shirt.

I screamed his name and lunged toward him, launching myself across the dilapidated remains of the table and chairs. While some part of me knew that a person that injured should not be moved, I still thoughtlessly seized him by the front of his drenched shirt and tugged him toward me, barely managing to pull him onto my lap. I shook him roughly, so stunned and panicked that I could not find the breath to scream with again. I only continued to shake him, whispering his name in croaky fragments. He was awake, and writhed in my arms a bit, bewilderment and fear on his face, and some numb, disjointed part of me wondered if he was going to die in my arms, with my hands clutching his shirt, all soaked in blood. Then the smell and the cold feel of it hit me, and I sagged in relief as I realized it was only spilled wine.

"God," I gasped, sucking in a ragged breath. I shoved him back, irrationally angry all of the sudden, my stomach curdling low in my gut. I was pissed at him for making me think he was dying. Then I realized the situation we were in, and that it was much more serious than I ever could have imagined. "Get up," I said at once, dropping my voice to a whisper.

"Wha—" began Mike, obviously nonplussed.

"Shh," I said urgently, and clutched his arms, trying to pull him up into a standing position with me. My right leg was burning for some reason, but I ignored it, struggling to help Mike to his feet. "Hurry." I held him behind me with one hand, swiftly side-stepping the piles of broken glass from the bar, and lead him towards the door. Kurt was slumped over unconscious in the center of the room, and Blaine lay sprawled out not far from him. I jumped when I saw him stir, and moved along faster as Mike and I darted out of the building.

"Hurry," I said again, marching down the street, where throngs of onlookers had already started to gather to get a look at the bar that had just half-blown up. My voice was cool and firm, unlike how I currently felt on the inside, which was stricken and horrified.

"Luc—Wait, Lucy!" I stopped, whirling around when Mike gripped me above my elbow, a snarl on my face. He let go at once, which certainly didn't help his confusion. "What's going on? What just happened?"

I quickly glanced around, furtively checking to make sure we were the only ones who stood in this dark alley. "That guy back there, Blaine—he's not really Kurt's boyfriend." I shook my head, remembering how I'd seen him on Kurt's Facebook for the past two years. "I mean, he is, but that's not all. He's—"

My next sentence was cut off with a strangled cry when something closed over my mouth and nose, and a strong, hard arm wrapped around my chest, pinning my arms to my side. I went to suck in a breath out of instinct and instead was met with some suffocating, cloying chemical that clogged my pores, made my eyes water and caused a gag to be ripped from my thoat. As I was dragged backwards, I saw the same thing happening to Mike, with some human figure garbed in all-black wrestling him down to the ground.

"Shut up," a voice hissed in my ear, before my stomach started to float and my tongue went fuzzy and I was met with nothingness as my eyes rolled into the back of my head.

* * *

"Lady, you need to wake the fuck up. Come on."

I moaned quietly, my head lolling on my neck as a hand slapped lightly and insistently on my cheek. There was an impatient sigh, and then a woman's voice spoke again. "Get the water. Pour it on her head," the woman ordered.

I gasped in shock, inhaling the freezing cold liquid that had been dumped more on my face than on the top of my head. I coughed, my arms flailing as I sat up straighter, bowing my head and squeezing my eyes shut to rid myself of the water that was running my eyeliner right into my eyes. "F—fuck!" I managed through chattering teeth. I shivered, blinking rapidly as I looked up at whoever the hell was leering over me, an empty bucket hanging from his grip.

"She's up. Now let's get the fuck out of here," came a male voice that sounded just as irascible as the woman's did.

"Wait," said the woman firmly. As my gaze came into focus, I recognized the shape of a person squatting next to me, realized that I was sitting down on cold concrete, my back leaned up against a brick wall. A man stood a few feet away, holding the bucket. "Can you hear us?" asked the woman in a slow, clear tone.

I nodded, wincing when my head throbbed.

The woman glanced back over her shoulder at the man before she scooted closer to me. My pulse was pounding and I was breathing perhaps more rapidly than was healthy, but I was more scared than I had ever been in my life, including that time Mrs. Chang was in a car wreck on the way to Mike and I's ballet recital. I had no idea who these people were, but if they were here for the same reason as Blaine, who knows what they were going to do to me. Everyone knew state officials were rich, and my father was the richest of them all. If these people planned on kidnapping me and using me as a hostage to get rich off my father…well, it was a solid plan for financial gain, I'd give them that.

"Okay. Can you tell us what just happened in that bar?" the woman asked, her voice low and deliberately casual, but I could see her, garbed in all black, crouching beside me looking positively tense.

I swallowed, my mouth dry and my throat burning. My head swam, and I wished I hadn't drunk that glass of wine. "Um. I don't know." The woman made a _tsk_ sound, as though she didn't believe me. I felt black creep toward the center of my vision again as my hearing seemed to flicker out. Her voice sounded distant as she gripped me by my shoulders and held me steady, murmuring, "Hang on a sec. We just want to talk. If you remain calm, there's no need for any violence. Alright? Now tell us. What happened in that bar?" She repeated the question firmly, slowly again, and I could tell by her fingers digging into my shoulders that she meant business.

Should I comply? I stared at her, wishing I could see something other than the slanted brown eyes that were watching me intently through the eyeholes on her black-swathed face. Of course they would wear masks. If I got away, they wouldn't want me to be able to recognize them in case they were caught at a line up, or they tried again. The skin around my eyes tightened. I was never one to back down from a challenge, so I would take the threatening route.

"My father is going to kill you," I whispered harshly, and I saw those admittedly pretty eyes narrow a moment before there was a sharp crack on the side of my head, and I fell into nothingness again.

* * *

"Rise and shine, Blondie."

"The sky is awake, and so should you be."

"Get the fuck up, bitch."

I grunted, squeezing my eyes shut tighter as I felt something make contact with my stomach. I was lying on my side, my legs tied and my arms bound together behind my back. I curled into a smaller fetal position as my gut radiated with the hollow pain of being kicked.

"Puck, don't kick her," said a soft female voice reproachfully.

"Shut up, B," answered a rough male one.

"Tell her to shut up one more time, and I will shove my fist so far down your throat that you'll taste my elbow before I pull your dick inside out," came a threateningly low female voice, and the male voice faded with a grumble. Absently, I recognized that that voice was the one that had hissed shut up to me, so it was pretty damn ironic that she was telling that guy off for saying shut up to the other girl.

The soft-voiced girl said something else that I didn't quite catch, and then the man spoke again.

"…Don't see why it matters. She knows, and she's still on his side. Bitch is not an ally."

"We don't know that," the soft-voiced girl said with an air of repetition in her tone, as though she'd had to remind the man of this on more than one occasion.

"We do, though!" the man insisted. "You saw her try to fucking blow up Blaine and Kurt, not to mention she took off running when any normal person would have called the fucking cops—"

"Maybe she was just scared," suggested the softer girl.

The man snorted. "Please. She's been living with Citadel scum for her entire life, not to mention running around with the Chang gang-bang. She's gunning for us, I'm _telling_ you."

"Quiet," the lower female voice ordered again, and the other two fell silent. "She's waking up."

I stirred, blinking blearily as I tried to get my bearings. My mind worked furiously despite my sleepy state, and I quickly ran through the list of things I did know. I was being held hostage by a group of at least four people. My old friend was obviously in on it, which I never would have expected out of Kurt. My father wouldn't know I was missing until next week, when we were supposed to meet for the annual Fourth of July party. Mike was nowhere to be found, though I presumed he was locked up somewhere in the same building as me, considering he was a witness to the crime. And I was in deep, deep shit, I realized, as I stared up at the three people who towered above me, all wearing the same black suits that reminded me of some kind of mix between a ninja and a secret agent, and gave me a startling sense of surrealism as I had to wonder for a moment whether or not any of this was real, or I was home passed out from drinking too much, and was just having a fucking weird dream.

"What—" I squeaked, and the man started laughing, deep robust laughs that caused him to double over. The girl next to him, who had a blonde ponytail that stuck out of the back of her hood, shook her head, and I could tell by her body language that she was amused as well. The other girl, who stood at a slight distance from the other two, was shorter and had a long dark ponytail that snaked around her neck to hang over her shoulder.

"Aw, are you scared?" mockingly asked the man, and I frowned, my mouth tightening into a thin line and my chin lifting into the air. I was not about to give these losers the satisfaction of seeing me looking so nervous, so I adopted a cool, composed expression, and stared at him from my position on the ground.

"We should probably let her go to the bathroom," recommended the blond girl with the soft voice.

"Nah, Citadel rats can piss and shit in their pants, just like the scum they are," retorted the man, with only a hint of mirth in his voice, which told me he was serious and, if he had his way, I really would be pissing myself right here, because my bladder was about to burst.

"God, you are so dramatic," said the shorter girl with a lofty tone, and she snapped her fingers. The door to the far end of the white room I was in opened, and two people dressed in all white came marching in. They appeared a bit like mad scientists to me, especially with their hair that stuck up at the ends as though they'd been playing with too much electricity. "Tell Vester that we're taking the girl to the bathroom," she barked, and the two people in white bowed their heads before backing out of the room. The woman crossed the space between us, gripped me by my arm and began to pull me up.

"Nice," said the man enthusiastically, starting toward me. The woman currently helping me to my feet whipped her head around to face him, and must have really glared at him with her eyes because the man lifted his palms, shrugging as he backed off. "Fine, fine. I was just joking, anyway."

The blonde girl took my other arm and helped the brunette balance me. They marched me toward another door opposite the one I'd seen, and led me into a bathroom area.

"Don't mind Puck," spoke the blonde as she and the brunette untied my arms. I could see bright blue eyes appraising me through the blonde's mask. "He just really hates the Citadel."

_What the fuck is the Citadel? _

"Where's Mike?" I said in a shaky voice as I was pushed through a stall door.

"Dead," replied the brunette, and I felt my heart turn to ice in my chest as I gasped, my arm flinging out and finding the stall walls to support me so I wouldn't fall to the ground. My stomach had dropped to my feet, and tears easily overflowed and poured down my face. _Oh my God, Mike. My best friend. My Mike._

My Mike was gone.

"_Rose_," said the blonde disapprovingly, lightly slapping the brunette on the shoulder. The brunette, apparently called Rose, laughed.

"Sorry. He's fine, he's in his cell. Been screaming about you for the past half hour since he woke, but he's fine."

The relief was so sudden and overwhelming that my knees went weak, and I really did sink to the floor this time.

"Oh, no, get up!" said the brunette in irritation, bending and hauling me up by my arms again. "Take a piss so we can get out of here, or you can kiss your boyfriend goodbye."

_He's not my boyfriend. _I bit my tongue, aware that it was so far from mattering right now that I really shouldn't care at all that my kidnapper had just called Mike my boyfriend. I hopped back (since my feet were still tied together), and the two women pulled the stall door shut.

I sat down and internally winced and cringed for a good thirty seconds as I emptied my bladder. Why in the world is this so awkward right now?

I did my best to rip off some toilet paper as loudly as I could, to mask my desperation as I looked around the stall for something, anything, to defend myself with. It was two against one, I was weak and my legs were bound together, but I'd be damned if I didn't go down without a fight.

But there was nothing I could use. Not even a spare plunger behind the toilet. So I finished my business, opened the stall, and morosely hobbled out, holding my hands out to be tied.

"Are you kidding me? Were you raised in a barn? Wash your hands!" snapped the brunette, pointing at the sinks in front of me. I automatically felt my cheeks flush red, and I silently hopped once to stand before the sink and put my hand beneath the soap dispenser. How was I supposed to know that my kidnappers were concerned about hygiene? I would have thought if I had tried to step past them, I would've received another swift kick to the gut.

The two women led me back to the white room I had woken up in, and I saw that there was absolutely nothing in it except for a white table, positioned against the wall and dead center between the two doors. The brunette left me with the blonde, who sat me down gently, while she presumably went to go find the man.

"I'm B," said the blonde kindly. "What's your name?"

"Fuck you," I snarled back.

"Well that's not very nice," said the blonde mildly, and she didn't speak again for the entire time we waited. I idly wondered what the hell kind of name B was until I realized they were probably all using code names here. The brunette certainly didn't seem like a "Rose," and what kind of name was "Puck," anyway?

When the brunette finally returned, the man was back with her. They both came to stand by the blonde and lean up against the table. I watched them nervously, wondering what the hell they were going to do with me in the meantime, while they probably waited to hear from my father.

"They're bringing the DNA results to us," the brunette told the blonde, who nodded in response.

DNA test? What the hell were they doing with DNA? A million theories ran through my head, each more unrealistic than the last. I'd been watching too much Orphan Black with my college roommate lately.

"How long?" asked the blonde.

"Any minute," responded the man. The three stood up straighter; the blonde girl stared up at the ceiling, the man glared towards the door, and the brunette fixed her intense gaze onto me.

I scowled right back at her, daring her to say something to me. I didn't know who the fuck this bitch was, but I decided then and there that out of all four of these idiots, I disliked her the most. I didn't like the confidence that shone in her eyes, as though she knew she could out-strength and out-smart me if she wanted to. I mean yeah, she could probably out-strength me. But no one outsmarted me. I was Lucy Fabray, daughter of the esteemed lawyer Russell Fabray, and the highly intuitive therapist Judy Fabray. I was the only daughter and had been raised with millions of dollars in my bank before I'd even been able to spell the word out. The world was at my feet, and this silly, pathetic, wanna-be-paparazzi asshole was _not_ going to make me her bitch.

As I glowered at her, her head tilted slightly, and a new light came into her eyes, one of entertainment. I felt my stomach sinking just as newfound anger bubbled inside me. Ever the riser to challenges, I vowed to myself that I would never let her beat me.

"Hey San, I have the results you requested, and you're not going to believe—"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" the brunette howled, finally ripping away from our silent eye contest. I raised my brows, pleasantly surprised that whoever it was that just strolled into the room had just majorly fucked up.

"Is Rose not your real name?" I called out sweetly. The man called Puck glanced nervously at me, while the blonde shook her head in exasperation. "What's San short for? Sandy? Sandra?"

The brunette made a loud growl, turning to stalk toward me. "If you don't shut the fuck up _right now_, Stretchmarks, I'm going to literally cut your tongue out of your pretty fat mouth."

My mouth fell open in horror as I realized the implications of the name she had just called me. Stretchmarks.

How much did she know about me?

The woman dipped her head in satisfaction. "That's fucking better." She turned to face the newcomer, a slender woman with long, auburn hair, pale skin, and wide, startled blue eyes. She had her hand over her mouth and appeared horrified with herself. "_Why _did you just give away my—"

"It's okay," the new woman said hastily, cutting across the brunette. She raised the folded papers she held in her hand. "She's one of us. She's not Citadel, she's—she's a Stark."

There was utter silence. All three of my captors stood frozen facing the newcomer. A full twenty seconds passed before one of them finally spoke up.

"A Stark?" marveled the blonde, her tone awestruck.

The newcomer nodded, a shining smile beaming out of a lovely face. "Yes! She's Emily Stark, Emily Stark who's been missing for—"

"Twenty years," said the brunette quietly, turning back to scrutinize me. The other three turned too; the newcomer looked joyous, the blonde appeared curious, and the man looked incredulous to the point of disbelieving. But the brunette, her gaze was cautious, hooded. As though she wasn't sure she wanted to believe what she was hearing, as though she weren't sure if she were capable of it. I could only remain where they had laid me down, my wrists aching where the rope was tied too tightly, my leg cramping beneath me, and my sweaty brow knitted in confusion as I looked back at her.

"Well," the brunette said after a long moment. Her three companions remained where they were as the brunette slowly advanced on me, reaching up behind her head as she did so. She pulled the band out of her hair before she pulled the mask off her face. She shook her head, fanning her dark hair back behind her shoulders before she came to a stop before me. "I'm Santana Lopez," she introduced herself, aiming her steady gaze onto me as she bent down and offered her free hand. If her eyes were captivating, they were nothing compared to how complimented they were by the rest of her face. Smooth tanned skin, defined cheekbones, an angled jaw, a long, straight nose, and full lips. She was easily the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and the fact that it sent my straight-as-an-arrow heart pounding did nothing but aid in my confusion. "Welcome home, Emily Stark."

* * *

Emily Stark had become my ghost. For the next six hours, I was ushered through throngs of unfamiliar faces, pulled into tight embraces by people I had never met before, and stood numbly as crying strangers wept on my shoulders that they had missed me and had never stopped looking for me.

The problem was, I couldn't recall ever having gone missing, let alone met any of these people.

My captors became a lifeline that I struggled to cling on to. The blonde reintroduced herself as Brittany Pierce, and the man introduced himself as Noah Puckerman. Brittany was as kind as she had been even as B, and had no qualms about nudging herself into a conversation to take the focus off an obviously bewildered me. Puck acted like an entirely new person now that he had taken off his mask; he apologized to me for kicking me and acting like an all-around douche, while easily spiriting me away from whatever uncomfortable situation I was in (most particularly when people were crying all over me) to take me to where the food was at.

Santana Lopez was nowhere to be found, and I was relieved about that, at least. I had not seen her since she had told me her real name, and while I felt slightly embarrassed that I had guessed names such as Sandy, I couldn't care less that I hadn't seen her since. Even if there was something captivating about her, and I wouldn't be altogether _too_ displeased if I got the chance to have another glimpse of her—

"Hey." Speak of the devil. I turned away from the elderly woman who was engaged in a conversation with a younger man about what I had been like as a baby, which made no fucking sense to me since I had lived in Maine when I was a baby. I turned to face none other than Santana Lopez, who stood a comfortable distance away from me, her gaze still hooded and wary as she appraised me.

"What the hell is going on here?" I demanded, ignoring the shocked expressions of the people nearest me. The older woman and the younger man both shuffled a few feet away.

"Shh," muttered Santana quickly, glancing around at the people who were staring at us.

"I will not _shh!_" I glared at her, planting my hands on my hips. "Where is Mike?"

Santana rolled her eyes as she gripped me above my elbow and steered me around toward a staircase. I thought about resisting at first, before realizing she may be leading me to Mike.

I ripped my arm from her grasp and allowed her to lead me up the stairs and down a long, narrow hallway, before finally stopping before an ornate wooden door painted a rich purple and decorated with intricate carvings shaped somewhat like a willow tree.

Her hand on the doorknob, Santana turned to scrutinize me. "Look," she said after a moment, her voice raspy and low. "I know you're confused, and probably pretty pissed off. But this is a difficult situation, and that makes it hard. I apologize for the way my comrades and I treated you. It wasn't professional, and we should have gave you the benefit of the doubt before treating you like you were part of the Citadel."

I huffed an impatient breath, irritated beyond belief. "_What_ is this Citadel no one seems to be shutting up about?"

Santana gave me a strange look, tilting her head and letting her dark hair swing forward to frame her face before she caught it and tucked it behind her ear. "You're telling me you don't even know what the Citadel is? Or who we are?"

I shook my head resolutely. Santana's eyes widened before she scowled, cursing.

"Great," she said flatly. "No fucking wonder you were so hard to deal with." She sighed. "Okay, just come in here, and we'll get things sorted. We'll explain everything to you, but you have to sit and hear us out. Alright?"

I chewed my bottom lip as I contemplated her offer. Finally, I nodded. "Deal." I took the hand she offered for me to shake, ignoring the slight tingle that her warm hand gave me. I had honestly never seen anyone as beautiful as her. She didn't look like she belonged here, in this ancient-looking building. She looked like she belonged on the cover of a magazine. I had always known I was reasonably attractive, and many a boy had told me I was beautiful. But next to this woman, I felt small and pale in comparison—especially considering I was still wearing the filthy silver dress I had been wearing last night, and had not had the chance to fix my makeup, hair, or do anything other than use the cheap new toothbrush they had allowed me to use.

Santana swung the door open and stepped back, allowing me to go inside first. When I did, the first thing I noticed was the huge round table, situated in the center of a large room with a high ceiling that made the place seem much bigger than it actually was. There were several people seated at it, the most striking being the tall woman with spiky blonde hair who sat what I guessed was at the head of the table, her chair being the largest.

"Sit," said the woman, and I got the impression that she gave a lot of orders around here. Rather than argue against it and make things more difficult to myself, I heeded Santana's request, and sat down at the table farthest from the woman's. Santana eased down into the chair next to mine, and exchanged greeting nods with the other five people who were in the room.

"My name is Sue Sylvester," said the woman, clasping her hands together before her. She was looking across the table at me as though I were a piece of meat, ready to be prodded and inspected before she threw me onto a grill. I shifted in my seat, uncomfortable. What was up with all the intense stares today? "Do you know who you are?"

I blinked at the question, wondering if this was about any more of that Emily Stark nonsense. "My name is Lucy Fabray."

"No," said Sue Sylvester, shaking her head. She pointed a finger at me. "Your name is Emily Stark."

I sucked in a long breath, struggling to rein in my steadily dwindling temper. "No," I said, keeping my tone deliberately light. I pointed at myself. "Lucy Fabray."

"She doesn't know anything about this," interjected Santana, but she fell silent when her superior shook her head again.

"Get Shuester in here. This is his place, not ours."

The tall, thickly built woman who sat at the chair nearest Sue's stood up and walked out of the door behind the table, opposite the one Santana and I entered through. The silence she left behind was awkward and stifling, but I still decided I should use this opportunity to speak up and ask where my best friend was.

Before I could, however, the woman was already back, with a man following in behind her.

The man was short, or perhaps seemed so compared to the large woman who had led him in. He had curly hair and a dimple in his chin. When his gaze landed on me, his eyes immediately welled up, and he brought an unsteady hand to his quivering mouth, choking back a sob. "Oh my God—" He staggered over to me, standing a few feet away from me as though he were afraid to come any closer. I frowned at him, baffled and more than a little disturbed, particularly when the man raised his hand, reached toward me and touched shaking fingertips to my forehead.

"Um, what the f—" I started as I pushed my chair back from him, freaked the fuck out, but before I could continue my sentence, Sue spoke up.

"She doesn't know anything."

The man cast an astonished, tearful gaze at Sue, swallowing hard before he shifted his gaze back onto me. "Emily—" he whispered, before Sue interrupted again.

"Yes, yes, that's Emily. Now explain it to her, so we can move on with things."

Santana rose out of her seat to offer it to the man, who lowered down onto it slowly, never taking his eyes off me. Then, slowly, with tears in his voice, he spoke. "You…your n—name is Emily Stark. And you…you're my daughter."

I blinked balefully up at the man, my stomach roiling with nausea at this unprecedented turn of events. "I'm not adopted," I said dumbly. When the man's brows knitted together, I went on. "I'm not adopted. I have a father and a mother. I have parents. I don't know what you're talking about." I looked up at Sue. "Whatever's going on, I think you have the wrong person."

"DNA does not lie, young lady," spoke Sue calmly. "That is your father, and you are his daughter."

I looked back at the man, dumbstruck. I saw nothing in his countenance that even remotely imitated mine. Were these people crazy? I was Lucy. Lucy Fabray. I was not this Emily Stark they were all so intent on believing I was. "I don't thi—"

"You look just like her," whispered the man in wonder as he studied me, a stray tear leaking out of the corner of one of his eyes. "Just like her."

"Who are you people?" I said loudly, panicked now. Fuck Santana's deal. This was creeping me out, and I was scared. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be at home with Mike, where it was safe and comfortable and familiar. "What's—"

Sue stood up, clear disgust on her face as she looked the man's way before meeting my gaze. "Allow me, since my hideously-permed colleague seems unable to put on his big boy britches and be the father he was never given the chance to be." There was a stunned silence in the room, in which the man slowly turned to look at Sue, tears rolling down his cheeks. Sue closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling and exhaling, before she opened them again and inclined her head. "I'm sorry. That was insensitive." She stood up straighter, walking around the table, pacing almost leisurely as she began to speak. "That sniveling excuse of a man before you is William Shuester, or as he's known by the Revenants, Shue. The Revenants are a group of military-trained specialists, created in order to hunt down and execute the remaining members of the corrupted branch of government Nazis commonly known as the Citadel, since they tend to find and create strongholds to use as fortresses against us while they attempt to manipulate their way to the top in various political conspiracies."

I glanced down at Santana, who only studied my stricken expression, something akin to pity in her dark eyes.

"As I said, my name is Sue Sylvester, and I am the leader of the Revenants. We've been engaged in open war with the enduring affiliates of the Citadel for the past eighty years, during which my mother, and my mother's father lead before me. The Citadel is always recruiting new members, generally through forms of mass influence and dogmatic harrying. On occasional, there are spies who infiltrate the Revenants, and use our information and our members against us. That's where you come in."

Sue turned to face me, her hands behind her back and her expression solemn. "Twenty years ago, two prominent members of our organization had a two-year old child called Emily Stark. Allison Necrosst, another member of our organization, turned sides. She took Emily from under our noses, and escaped with her. She brought the child to Scott Halvien, the recently promoted leader of the Citadel, who joined after he was fired from his own government job for selling information to terrorists. He faked his death, started over, and gave himself a new identity as one Russell Fabray, married to one Judy Fabray, otherwise known as the newly blonde Allison Necrosst, and father to his adorable young toddler, Lucy Fabray."

I gaped open-mouthed at Sue, who stood staring expectantly at me as though she had predicted me to thank her for such information.

I was in shock. They were accusing my father of…of horrible things. Of potential murder, for giving information to terrorists. Of lying to trick the government, of kidnapping a child and raising it as his own. They were accusing my mother of the same. This…none of this could possibly be even close to the truth, could it?

Sue raised a hand and beckoned toward the Indian man that sat two chairs down. With a serene smile, the man reached into the briefcase resting on the table. He set out one, two, three books before finally handing a small green binder to Sue, who opened it briefly to sift through the pages before she handed it over to William Shuester. Shuester took the booklet with quivering hands, opened it up and set it on the table before me. My heart was thumping a tattoo against my chest as I leaned forward and peered down at the pictures plastered over the pages, and I felt sick as I grasped what I was looking at.

The child could hardly be more than a year old, but it was unmistakably me. Her hair was almost white-blonde and there wasn't very much of it. She was being scooped up in the arms of some laughing blonde woman, who stood behind a laughing man who was….William Shuester. The man who claimed to be my….but no. This wasn't enough proof.

"This…this could be fake," I said, desperation clear in my tone.

"I think we all know it's not," said Sue simply.

_It could be real,_ a tiny voice in the back of my head susurrated. What a strange coincidence, that I had never seen a single photograph of me any younger than around three years old, nor any pictures of my mother pregnant with me. My parents had told me we had lived in a different home, and that a fire had taken all of our valued possessions. And yet, there were clearly pictures of my parents at their wedding, holding hands and presenting broad smiles that didn't quite meet their eyes. How convenient…

And then there was the fact that my family was so well-off. We quite literally had millions of dollars. From what? My father was a lawyer, my mother a therapist. They didn't make that much. I had always assumed it was from my rich grandparents, who had died before I'd been born. But maybe…

But no. This couldn't possibly be real.

My chest rising and falling rapidly with my shallow breathing, I looked up at Santana again; I wasn't sure why, other than the fact that this was possibly the only person in the room as young as I was. She certainly looked young, but there was anything but youth in her eyes. She looked back at me with that pity solidified, and empathy, as though she had been here before.

My entire life just may be a lie.

What was I supposed to do about that?

My hands shaking, I pushed the binder away from me. Sue seemed to take that as confirmation, and with a snap of her fingers, the Indian man stuffed the binder back into his briefcase and closed it with a click.

I wanted nothing more than to melt away into the air. To be alone. To feel safe again, not alienated in this strange new world where I was not the person I had always believed I was. I felt a sudden rush of loathing for my parents, for Sue Sylvester, and for William Shuester. For my parents for lying to me among all the other things they did, if they really did them at all, for Sue for telling me the truth this way, by kidnapping me and bringing me to this fucked up place where everyone cried and hugged me and told me they'd missed me, and for Shuester for never bothering to hunt me down, assuming we were really related at all.

I missed my best friend. I wanted Mike's familiar arms around me, pulling me into his warm embrace. "Where's my friend?" I asked Sue, who raised her brows at the anxiety in my voice. "Where's Mike?"

"Michael is being detained."

"I want to see him." A few of the people around the table cast wary glances at Sue and I, obviously uncomfortable with the demanding tone I was exhibiting to their leader. I didn't know whether it was out of indignity over my lack of respect, or caution over the thin ice I was treading on in ordering something from a woman like Sue. Either way, I didn't care. I just wanted to see my best friend and make sure he was okay.

"You can't," replied Sue calmly. Before I could start snarling my retort, she silenced me with a raised hand. "You can't," she repeated. "You were born a Revenant. He is a Chang. The Changs are a well-known gang of criminals who have been aiding the Citadel in their efforts against the Revenants for as long as they've been around. We cannot risk Michael getting free and informing them of our whereabouts. We will assess the situation, and figure out the best process with which to deal with him."

"Deal with him?" I thundered, my voice growing louder with each syllable. "He's not in a gang! He's my best friend! He's a ballet dancer! He's Mike!" I felt arms close around my middle, pulling me back from the table. Sue continued to glare at me as I was hauled out of the room, screaming with each involuntary drag. "You can't hurt him! You can't! He's innocent! He doesn't have anything to do with you! He's a ballet dancer! Let him go!"

She _had_ to let him go. They couldn't harm him. What if they hurt him? I couldn't bear the thought of him being hurt. He was my person, he was my best friend and I loved him too much to lose him. When was the last time I'd even told him I loved him? I felt ice flood through my veins as I remembered.

_Five months ago. The end of Christmas break. I had been over at his parents' for dinner, and he was taking me home. He took a different route to my house, stopped at an ice cream shop and bought me my favorite strawberry cone. As we sat on the park bench, he had leaned forward and caught my lips beneath his. I froze, and I felt my ice cream cone crunch under my tightened grip. Panic sparked through me; I didn't know what to do. This was my third kiss with him, the first being when we were ten years old and decided we wanted to try kissing, the second being when we were sixteen and Mike told me he thought he loved me. Now here. How do I tell him no again? How do I explain to him that I don't feel butterflies when I kissed him? You were supposed to feel butterflies. Everyone felt butterflies when they kissed someone they liked, they all did in the books I read and the movies I watched. I didn't feel butterflies when Mike kissed me, I hadn't felt butterflies when Biff kissed me outside of the cafeteria in high school, I hadn't felt butterflies when Ricky, Zack, Matt, or Ryder had kissed me either. Maybe something was wrong with me. Maybe I just needed to try harder._

_ So I leaned forward and I pushed my lips harder into Mike, my breasts bumping up against his chest, and I could practically feel his surprise and excitement at my response. He gently, tentatively brushed my hair back from my face before splaying his fingertips across the curves of my cheeks, stroking me softly as he deepened the kiss. I felt nothing but panic, panic at the fact that I felt nothing. It was an endless paradox that poured fuel onto the fire that was my grief. He was my best friend, he was so kind and smart and talented and perfect. Why couldn't I feel anything?_

_ Frustrated, I took a handful of his shirt, yanked him even closer as I parted my lips and kissed him with more aggression, more passion, a slight growl even ripping from my throat. Mike struggled to catch up with me, enthusiastic with the turn of events. He thought that it was us. That I was enjoying this, and that's why I was kissing him this way. He didn't and couldn't understand that I was just overcompensating, trying to create something out of thin air that I knew would never exist. It wasn't him. It was me._

_ I pushed him back abruptly, and we both sat where we were, panting. My half-eaten ice cream had fallen to the pavement, and my fingers were sticky with the sweet melted mess that had dribbled out of the bit of cone I had crushed. Mike's own ice cream lay forgotten on the edge of the bench; fortunately, he had gotten a bowl, not a cone. _

_ Why was I even thinking so much about this ice cream? There was a more significant problem at hand._

_ Mike was smiling at me, pure happiness lighting up his eyes. "I love you, Luce. I've been in love with you since the second grade. Please, say you'll give me a chance. Go out with me."_

_ I stared at him, feeling as though I was an actor paralyzed on stage, gawking out at the audience with the vastest spotlight focused directly on me. I hated myself. I hated myself for my selfishness, for using Mike to try to convince myself I felt something. I hated myself for failing to, yet again. Something _must_ be wrong with me._

_ "I—I can't," I stammered, dropping my hands from Mike's chest. I looked down at my lap, avoiding the crestfallen expression I knew would be on his face. "I can't, Mikey," I said quietly, a furious blush painting itself ruddy on my cheeks. "I—I don't want to risk what we have. Our friendship…it means everything to me."_

_ "Aw, Lucy, come on," groaned Mike, and I looked up, surprised at the anguish that was displaying itself so clearly in his tone and on his face. "This is awesome," he said adamantly, taking my chin gently between two fingers. "Think of how much better it could be if we took it even farther. I'd do anything for you. All I want is to see you smile, to make you happy and bring a laugh out of you every day. You deserve everything, Lucy Fabray, and I promise I would do my best to give it to you."_

_ "Mike, I…" I was at a loss for words, and feeling absolutely wretched with myself._

_ "Please," he said earnestly. "Give this a chance. And hey, just imagine…if we were dating, I would dance every day for you."_

_ I was tearing up, a lump in my throat at the unfairness of this all, for Mike and for myself. He deserved so much better than me, and I was tired of hurting him. "You already dance every day for me, you loser, we're in the same dance class," I reminded him lightly, my voice croaky with the effort of fighting to hold back tears._

_ "Yeah, but do I dance _naked_ for you?" he asked smugly, and I was so shocked that I forgot to fight the tears, and I broke down into heavy sobs that shook my entire body. Mike made a distressed noise, pulling me into a hug again. I wept in his arms, listening as he whispered assurances that it was okay._

_ "You know I love you," I told him, my voice thick with tears as I stared through blurry eyes at my hand, as I methodically spread and closed my fingers together, watching the way the melted ice cream clung to my skin. "Just…friend. I friend-love you."_

_ "I know," muttered Mike, continuing to stroke me and tell me he would wait, wait until I was ready._

_ I didn't know how to tell him that I knew I never would be._

"For fuck's sake, shut your mouth, before she has him shot," muttered a raspy voice that yanked me out of my memories, and I realized it had been Santana who had lugged me out of the room.

I quieted at once at her warning, winded as she let me go and I stumbled before I regained my balance. "You have to let him go," I insisted as I reeled around to face her. I was again taken aback at how flawless her skin was, dark and glowing in the dim light of the lone lightbulb in the hallway. She was at a closer proximity than I was used to, and I lurched back to provide some much-needed space.

"I'll try my best," she said simply, appearing stressed as she ran a hand through her hair. I stood stupidly, caught off guard by how easily she agreed to help me.

"Thank you," I said suspiciously. I grew very aware that my own hair must look terrible right now, and I self-consciously brushed my fingertips through it, uncomfortable.

Santana's dark gaze followed the movement, and she spoke again, her words faltering with her own obvious discomfort. "Do you, uh…Do you want some clothes, or something? To change into? We're probably the same size…"

"I don't know," I mumbled, smoothing a wrinkle on my hip with my palm. It was pointless, considering my entire dress seemed to be composed of nothing but wrinkles.

"Oh. Right." Santana dipped her head, looking fixedly at the ground, and the awkwardness in the air was so palpable a knife probably couldn't have cut through it. "I guess…I'll just show you to your room, then."

"I have a room?" I pondered aloud.

Santana nodded, starting to walk forward. I followed her, easily keeping up with her long stride. "Yeah. It's right next to mine, so if you need anything…" As her voice trailed off, I frowned at a new thought.

"Why would they…?"

"So I can make sure you don't try to do anything reckless," said Santana, confirming my thoughts. She was basically my guard, here to make sure I don't try to go bust Mike out on my own, or escape.

"Makes sense," I breathed, and we fell silent as we rounded a corner and headed down another lengthy hallway.

Santana opened a door and I followed her into a room that made my jaw drop. The bed was huge and covered in rich comforters and lavish pillows that looked as though one could get lost in them. There was a mini-fridge perched upon the baroque dresser, and a big-screen TV hung on the wall adjacent to the bed. If they gave rooms like this to people they ordered a guard to watch overnight, I could only imagine how they treated their actual guests.

"_This_…is my room."

Oh. Of course. I hid my disappointment with a carefully composed blank expression, as Santana didn't bother to hide her smirk as she crossed the room to her dresser and pulled out a few articles of clothing. She tossed them at me as she passed by me again, back into the hallway. She closed the door behind her. "Here. Don't be weird, just take them," she ordered when I started to argue.

I arched a brow when I realized they were rather scanty lingerie. Santana shrugged when I met her gaze. I felt my neck and ears grow uncomfortably hot, as I understood this must be all she wore or, if these were the most decent clothes she could give me, she probably wore much less than this. I coughed, bewildered at the fact that I was blushing. If I didn't know any better, I would say the idea made me flustered. Which made zero sense, considering this was just some random girl who, several hours ago, had been someone I thought had kidnapped me.

As though traveling along the same wavelength, Santana asked, "By the way…if you don't mind me asking. If you didn't know about any of this…why the hell did you run?"

The bar. Kurt, and Blaine. Right. Looking at it now, I could see how it looked as though I were onto them, and running…especially when I used my father to threaten Blaine, and then later Santana as well.

"I thought Blaine was a reporter and had heard my father was going to run for governor," I confessed. "I thought he was trying to make stories up about me, or use me as a hostage to get a ransom sum out of us. People have tried that before."

Santana looked torn between disapproval and reasonable entertainment. "I suppose that makes sense," she conceded, after a pregnant pause. "For the record, they're both fine." At the blank expression she was met with, she added, "Kurt and Blaine. They're fine. Still unconscious, but our doctor said they'll heal up fine and be back to normal activity in a couple of days."

"Oh yeah…what exactly happened in that bar, anyway?" I asked nervously. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel about Kurt. At this point, I didn't know whether he was friend or foe.

"Blaine is a Revenant member. That's how we found you."

My eyebrows rose. "Blaine found me?"

"No, actually, I did." Santana gave a small smile, the closest to one I'd seen her give, with only the corners of her lips barely curved up. "When Blaine started seeing Kurt seriously, he brought Kurt into the loop. Kurt was hanging out here at headquarters waiting for Blaine to get back from basic training. He was scrolling through Facebook, and I saw a picture of you."

My brow furrowed; if there was a point here, I was missing it. "How would that—"

"We've actually met before," she interrupted, and her lips tugged into a wider smile, almost abashed as she held my baffled gaze. "If you had looked on through that green binder, you would have seen a picture of me and you. When we were babies. Our parents used to be friends," she supplied at my lingering confusion.

This was just too surreal. Here I was, standing with a woman who I had apparently known when I was a baby, who was now my captor and prison guard. What the hell was my twisted-up life coming to?

"I recognized the picture, found out information about you through Kurt. I already pretty much knew when he told me about the Changs', but when I found pictures of your parents and showed them to Shuester, he officially knew. We got the go-ahead from Sue, and set up Blaine for his first mission. He's good, but he's new and inexperienced. That bomb that went off in the bar wasn't supposed to except for emergencies. My guess is that when you threatened him with your father, he panicked and hit the button."

No wonder Kurt had been acting so weird; Blaine was a trained professional, but Kurt wasn't. He must have been a terrified mess.

Another thought occurred to me then, and I nervously fiddled with a stray thread poking out of the hem of my dress before hesitantly asking, "If my father really did…you know…why, do you think?"

Santana considered my question for a long moment, her dark eyes seeming to burn through me. I wasn't sure what it was about her, but something about that penetrating stare sent shivers down my spine, and it was pretty damn hard to convince myself that they were unpleasant ones. "Honestly?" she finally said after a time. "Probably to use you as a hostage. Maybe murder you to exact revenge, and to get a payout at the same time."

_Ouch._ The severity of the theory hit me like a load of bricks. I was disconcerted with her honesty. Most people would probably have at least tried to sugarcoat it, but I suppose it really wasn't surprising that Santana's personality was as intense and unapologetic as her gaze.

I nodded; there was no need to say anymore. Santana started walking again, and we crossed the few feet away from her door to stop before another. It wasn't quite as lavish as her room, and the colors were only a dull gray rather than red and bold as hers had been, but it certainly wasn't anything to complain about. It was more than I would have expected. "Thanks," I muttered before stepping inside. As I turned to close the door, I found myself stopped by a tanned hand with long, slender fingers splayed out in the center of the door. I didn't understand why my heart kicked a little faster when I turned to meet Santana's dark gaze again.

"One last thing," she said, and I waited for the other shoe to drop. Santana tilted her head, a thoughtful frown gracing her undeniably breathtaking features. "What do you prefer to be called?"

I returned the frown, though I was sure it wasn't nearly as attractive on my tear-stained, in-severe-need-of-a-bath face. "What?"

"Your name," she explained politely. "Lucy? Emily?"

My name. The thought brought a sick new twist of revulsion to the pit of my stomach. There was my old name, Lucy Fabray. And my new name, Emily Stark. Neither one fit me. Lucy was the name given to me by my psycho-terrorist family, who had kidnapped me from my real family. At the same time, Emily was the name I was meant to have, but never had the chance to, and what was done was done. Both names were no longer suitable.

"Or a new one?" proposed Santana, again seeming to read my thoughts. "What about your middle name?" At my confused, slightly forlorn expression, she cringed, scrunching her face up adorably. "Shit. Right. You don't know. It's Quinn."

"So…Emily Quinn Stark, or Lucy Anna Fabray," I mused aloud.

Emily Quinn Stark. Lucy Anna Fabray. It was a mess.

But if I couldn't have neither of them…maybe I could have both. I couldn't be one or the other. After today, I couldn't return to my life and be Lucy again, nor could I reclaim my past self and be Emily once more. But I could put them together…

"I like Anna," suggested Santana, cocking an eyebrow. "Anna's hot."

I blinked twice in shock before a heat flooded through my body, as I seemed to melt beneath Santana's penetrating gaze, like she knew exactly how attractive she was and the effect it had on people. That was a really gay comment. What she gay? Jesus, I was straight, but the way she was making my body temperature fluctuate, you would think…

"Quinn," I said firmly, ignoring the way Santana's lips quirked in a smirk. "I'll go with Quinn."

Santana's other brow winged up now. "Last name?"

"Fabray. That way it's…"

"Both of them," finished Santana for me. "Okay then. Quinn Fabray." She reached out, fully grinning now as she took my hand and shook it. "Nice to officially meet you."

My witty response faltered in my throat as I floundered under the shock of seeing Santana smile for the first time. Her full lips were spread wide, her white teeth sparkling. She was actually stunning, so beautiful it wasn't fair, and not because I was jealous, but because how fucked up was it that now, with her, here of all places, while Mike was somewhere in a cell and I had a new identity with two old ones chasing me down with a vengeance, as I gazed back into the intense dark eyes of my apparently very old friend, I finally felt what I'd been looking to feel my entire life:

Fucking butterflies, spreading fire with each flutter of their wingtips.


	2. Chapter II: Ghost

_**A/N: Hello my lovely readers. All hail Quinntana.**_

_**I just wanted to say this story will finish. I don't know if it will finish in one more chapter, or in five, but it will end.**_

_**For those of you who are wondering, I am also definitely continuing my Fate on Fire.**_

_**Anyway, enjoy, please leave me reviews as I love them and they give me incentive to write (not to mention I love hearing what you guys think). I apologize for any errors here; I do not have a beta, and I haven't had time to check over this, but I wanted to go ahead and post it for you.**_

_**Enjoy!**_

**_Chapter II_**

* * *

_"Sunday morning, rain is falling…"_

I cracked an eye open, focusing on the only light visible in the solid darkness of my room. My alarm clock blinked vivid yellow numbers at me. 5:00.

_"Steal some covers, share some skin…"_

I pushed myself up in bed, my comforters and pillows tumbling back from me. I pressed the button on my alarm, cranking the music louder, and then I rolled to my feet, springing out of bed to hit the light switch. Squinting in the brightness, I made my way to the bathroom, yawning.

Oddly enough, I'd had a dream about the intriguing stranger who lived a door down from me. It would be a lie to say the preponderance of my thoughts weren't fixated her way; after all, this was someone that I had listened to countless people declare dead as I grew up. It was almost captivating, to see the grown up woman of so many pictures I had spent my life familiar with; pictures of little me, dark-skinned and wide-eyed, sharing gurgling giggles with the pale, golden-haired girl in the playpen next to me. We had been the only two children in the Revenants at that time. When she was taken away from us, I was the only one left until I was five years old and Marley Rose was born.

I had just changed into my workout clothes when I realized that Emily—no, Lucy—damn it, no, _Quinn_—would need clothes to change into. The image of her in her ripped, wrinkled, dirt-ridden silvery dress flooded into my mind again. Her hair had been something akin to a matted, tangled lion's mane, and she had smelled faintly of alcohol, probably because of whatever red liquid had been spilled on her and her boyfriend. I was guessing wine. Her makeup had ran and made her look like some kind of mix between a panda and a KISS band member, not to mention she had been covered in dirt and sweat after a night of being in a small bomb explosion, running from the crime scene, being hogtied and dragged back to headquarters, and spending the day in the White Room, our most arduously boring cell. On any other person, such a hard day would have, at the least, severely impacted their appearance. Yet with her…that didn't seem to be the case. I would be an idiot if I tried to deny the fact that she was, after all, an exceptionally beautiful person…

I gathered a bundle of carefully selected clothes, uncertain as to whether or not she would even wear any of them. I mostly had tight black jeans, manifold tank-tops, and a plethora of jackets, just because the color code for on-duty Revenants was always black, and it was easier to just wear dark clothing anyway, to fit in. Quinn didn't seem like the type of girl who wore a lot of dark clothing; she looked as though she belonged in expensive dresses made of silk and other fine things. In fact, she didn't look like she belonged here at all. I had expected that, if the day ever came that Emily Stark was found, she would fit right in like a glove. This Emily Stark was not what anyone had expected. She was from an entirely different world than the one the rest of us lived in.

I managed to find two colorful, perhaps girlier looking dresses, hidden at the back of my dresser. They were old, probably from my high-school graduation time, but had only ever been worn once and were probably the right size. I clutched a handful of flip flops, heels and wedges on the off chance that we were the same shoe size, and took a couple pairs each of the new bras I had just bought the other day, along with several thongs I'd purchased just last week and had still yet to wear. If she didn't wear thongs, she was shit out of luck, because they were pretty much all I owned. Then I turned the doorknob with an elbow, used my ass to push back the door, and teetered unsteadily over to Quinn's room, weighed down with all the items in my arms.

I was grateful we'd given her the room without the lock, because if I'd had to dig up a spare key, I would have dropped everything in my hands. As it was, it was still difficult to open her door. Once I finally managed, I stumbled into a dark room, finally dropping all the clothes and shoes. When I realized Quinn was directly in front of me, curled up at the foot of the bed and wearing the clothes I had given her to sleep in, I felt as though I'd been punched directly in the gut.

I held a fervent wish that I'd had more appropriate clothes to give her, because this wasn't even fair. She had showered before she fell asleep. Her face was clean and bare of any makeup, her hair tumbling down her shoulders in waves of gold, free of a straightener or any products. I found it ironic that many a people had believed Emily Stark to be an angel in heaven, but here she was. An angel sleeping in my red lace lingerie. Then I shook myself out of the corny reserve I'd fallen into, willed myself not to be a creep and resist the temptation to just gaze at this mysterious, gorgeous stranger, and moved along my way.

Quietly, I picked up the things I'd dropped, folded them, and set them neatly on the chair adjacent to the bed. Quinn didn't stir as I carefully placed the shoes in a neat pile at the foot of the chair, nor did she so much as twitch as I backed out of the room and softly closed the door behind me. Clearly she had needed to catch up on her sleep, which wasn't at all surprising considering everything she had gone through.

Half an hour later, sweat was dripping down my back and my arms were burning as I did pull-ups on the bar in the weight training room, while energetic pump-up music was pulsating through large black speakers on a metal table near the front doors. Like most days, I thought about the Citadel as I pushed myself harder. I thought about that time I was ten years old and Shue and Pills were having a celebration for their first anniversary, and I found Shue crying in the hallway holding the Missing Child poster of his daughter that he'd stolen out of the Officials' chamber. I thought about all the missing children I along with the rest of my team had found over the years, both dead and alive. I thought about the Wanted posters hanging on the corkboard in the main chamber, with black and white photographs of a younger Scott Halvien, and the newer photographs in color, of "Russell and Judy Fabray." I thought about all the murders, lies, and conspiracies I had already helped to untangle just in the few years I had joined as an official Revenant. I thought about all the fucked up things that were constantly happening around me, and I used that anger it gave me, the fury, to fuel my motivation as I pushed harder, and harder, until my muscles were screaming.

"Trying to set a record?"

To my credit, I didn't break stride at the sudden intrusion, nor did I at my surprise upon realizing I hadn't even noticed the music had shut off. I finished my rep before dropping the two feet to land on the ground with the solid smack of my running shoes on the mat.

"Hey Quinn," I greeted, turning to take in the sight of Quinn Fabray standing in the doorway with her arm still extended toward the stereo. I didn't miss the way her eyes slightly widened at the use of her new name. She wasn't accustomed to it, of course. I walked toward her, unstrapping the gloves from my hands.

She had decided on one of the dresses. It was a dark blue, with buttons down the front that sparkled a faint periwinkle. I tried not to let my eyes rake over the pale exposed flesh of her shoulders and chest, instead focusing on her face, but that idea was just as bad. She still wore no makeup, but she was absolutely flawless. Her skin was creamy, her cheeks a delicately tinged pink from a much-needed night's rest, and her eyes were almond-shaped and the most interesting flux of gold and green that I'd ever seen. Awkward in my sudden awareness over just how attractive this woman was, I cleared my throat, looking down deliberately at my gloves as I pulled them off, and then the floor as I pulled the band out of my hair and shook it loose.

"Thank you for the clothes," said Quinn politely, brushing a hand over the dress and fluffing up the bottom of it.

"It was no problem. You can keep them, if you want. I have more."

When all I received was silence in response, I looked back up at her, sucking in a breath to collect myself. It still didn't prepare me for being under that vivid hazel scrutiny. She was studying me, white teeth worrying a plump bottom lip as she contemplated whatever was on her mind. "Listen," she said finally. "I really, really miss my friend. Do you think that—that that woman would let him out, if his father wired over some money or something?" When all I did was gaze back at her, the enthusiasm in her eyes faltered, withering away into pitiful forlornness. "I just…really miss him."

Instead of answering with a response she could already guess herself, I asked curiously, "Why do you call him your friend?"

She blinked at me once before averting her gaze, pink tinting her cheeks. "Because that's what he is," she muttered, dropping her arm from the speakers so she could instead tug insistently on a vagrant filament she found protruding out of the hem of her dress.

I tilted my head, further interested and amused by her reaction. "Does _he_ know that?"

"Yes," she snapped. Her eyes were burning when they shifted back onto me sharply. "And I don't see how this has anything to do with what I asked you, nor is it any of your business."

"It doesn't, and it isn't." I shrugged, sweeping a hand through the length of my hair. Despite her obvious irritation, Quinn's eyes followed the movement.

"Then why waste my time?" she retorted.

"I'm not wasting your time. In fact, if there was any time being wasted, it would be my own." I pulled my phone off the speakers and grabbed the gloves and water bottle sitting next to it. I walked past Quinn through the doorway, gesturing for her to follow me as I continued, "You're a guest here. There's nothing important you're required to do. I mean, if you wanted, you could go talk to your biological father, or go to the Records Room and search for information on your past. If you don't want to do that, than the most pressing places you have to be today are probably in the cafeteria for lunch and dinner. Otherwise, you're free up. I, meanwhile, have to go back to my room, shower, go to lunch at twelve, teach a basic training session at two, go to dinner at five, attend a mandatory team meeting at six thirty, go to yoga at nine, shower again, and hit the sack. So, if anything, you've been wasting _my_ time." I twisted my neck to shoot her a teasingly stern look. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

The glare she responded with was withering. "First of all, if I were a guest here, I could leave any time. And I can't exactly do that, can I? Secondly, why the hell would you do yoga at nine o'clock at night?"

We passed through the small indoor track that was situated as an entrance for the weight training room. Puck was the only one currently running; he nodded at Quinn and I as he jogged past us, and I inclined my head back in greeting. Six in the morning was about the only time Puck could be counted on to stay quiet and not ruin the day with his loud mouth, particularly when he was exercising, so Quinn and I were easily able to walk across the stretch of track and out the door into the sunlight.

"No, I guess you can't," I mused, imaging Sue's face if Quinn were to ask if she could return home. "But considering the fact that now you know your parents are dangerous criminals who kidnapped you and lied about your entire life, would you really want to leave, anyway?"

"Why would I want to leave a place where I've been lied to, baited, nearly blown up, had freezing water dumped on me, was knocked out and kicked before finally being kidnapped, held against my will, and not allowed to see my best friend, who's being held captive in some other, apparently hidden, part of these fucked up, crumbling buildings? Yeah no of course, why would I ever want to leave this magical paradise?" asked Quinn scathingly, her voice dripping in sarcasm.

_She had a point_, I thought, but held my tongue and my irascibility in cheek as we strolled into the main living building and up the stairs. It wasn't until we had reached the floor where are rooms were situated and started down the hallway that I found the right words. "It's definitely not paradise," I admitted, "but we're a family here. We defend one another, we protect one another, and we take care of each other. And that's more than can be said about what's waiting for you back home, right?"

We had reached our rooms. We stopped outside of Quinn's, since it came first before mine. I was faced with a cold expression when I turned around. "Even if I did completely believe the nonsense you people are throwing at me about my parents, it wouldn't matter. The only person I consider my_ real_ family is the person who came here with me. And none of you hypocritical, insane, fucking selfish _assholes_ will let me see him, so, fuck you, Santana, or should I call you fucking _Rosario_, like the rest of your fucking disturbed team of wanna-be-badasses? You're a fucking joke. You all are, and I swear when I'm finally out of here, you're going to wish you'd never met me, once my father is through with you."

I kept my face impassive and remained calm while Quinn spoke, even though with each word she said, her face became redder and her voice rose louder, and my own anger grew. I tilted my head, deliberately curving my lips upward in a lofty smile as I remarked in amusement, "I'm shuddering under your threats, Malfoy."

Quinn's eyes widened and she literally snarled at me before she flipped me off, opened her door, and slammed it in my face.

I chuckled to myself as I entered my room and turned the shower on, stripping as I relived the argument with Quinn in my head. Was it fucked up that I really liked her angry expressions, as much as they annoyed me at the same time? Composure had been drilled into me during monthly mandatory basic training since I was sixteen years old and first officially joined the Revenants. I knew how to remain calm in any situation, how to be cool and aloof and appear unaffected. But when she had been ranting about my team and my family, anger had begun curdling in my belly. I had a temper. I had always had a temper, one that many feared and one that I had worked my ass off to gain control of. Yet in the space of a couple days, Quinn Fabray had already gotten herself under my skin.

Was it bad that I kind of liked her there?

* * *

"She's really pretty," noted Brittany as she gazed up at the ceiling or, more presumably, where the imaginary clouds that her head was always stuck in were floating about in a fluffy white wonder.

I rolled my eyes, only because it was about the fourth time Brittany had made such an observation in the past hour and a half that we'd been studying and analyzing the behavior of one Quinn Fabray.

Rachel Berry spoke up before I could say anything, taking the words right out of my mouth. "Yes, Brittany, we know she's pretty. And clearly, so do you. So can we please move on and finish the report?" The patience in Rachel's voice was impressive, and a significant feat for her.

"Imagine if Brittany was the only one doing this report. It would only have one line written on the entire thing," muttered Blaine from across the room. " 'Emily Stark is really pretty.' "

"To be fair, she actually is," conceded Kurt, and Blaine dropped the papers he had been holding up to his nose while reading to gape at Kurt instead.

"Are you kidding me right now? She nearly blew us up!" he said indignantly.

Kurt stared disdainfully at him. "No, you were the one who_ did_ blow us up. You pressed the button, not her. And it was our fault she was even there with us, anyway. I told you guys that she wasn't like that. I told you that the Lucy I knew wouldn't threaten to kill anyone. Actually, she would," he added in afterthought. "But not seriously. Well, maybe."

I rolled over on the couch that I lay on, leveling my grin to Kurt. "She does have quite the temper," I chimed, recalling the way she had acted towards me in the morning.

Kurt nodded in agreement, smiling as he recalled some memory. "Oh, yes, she does. She's good at hiding it, but when it comes out, whoa. You should've seen her at her senior graduation party, when she found out her boyfriend had been cheating on her. She flipped _out_."

"The Mike guy?" I asked, intrigued.

"Oh no, no. They're just friends. I mean, Mike is madly in love with her. But Lucy doesn't feel the same."

Hmm. So they really weren't together.

"What did she do at the party?" asked Marley in her soft, wondering tone, and Kurt started snickering.

"She actually grabbed a tennis racket and hit the shi—"

"Guys, please!" insisted Rachel. As always, when things started to get off track, Rachel Berry was there to order us all to attention. At the exasperated expressions we gave her, she gave an impatient sigh and flapped the papers she held in her hand. "We have to finish this by dinner or Vester is going to _kill_ us, so can we _please_ get it done already?"

"God, _yes_, if it means you shutting up," I snapped as I sat upright, swinging my legs off the coach so I could stand. Rachel narrowed her eyes at me, but I ignored her, instead taking a picture off the table to pin it to the corkboard under the bold heading: "EMILY STARK." Her original Missing Child poster had been taken down, and she was instead getting a new portfolio to be hung in the Ongoing Investigations section of the room.

"Okay then," began Rachel in a delicately brisk voice, clearly intent on moving past my comment. She held her pen at the ready, hovering over the paper before her. "So, what do we know about Emily Stark thus far?"

"Her father was a lawyer, her mother was a therapist, and she was a drama major at Yale," stated Kurt methodically, like he'd been chanting his knowledge to himself all day long.

"She grew up with Scott Halvien for a dad, Allison Necrosst for a mom, and the Changs for the fun family friends," said Puck with an eye roll.

"She's pretty," acknowledged Brittany, and everyone echoed Puck's eye roll.

"Her birth-name is Emily Stark, her given name is Lucy Fabray, and the new name she chose for herself is Quinn Fabray," I added thoughtfully, tasting each word in my mouth like I was familiarizing with them. I blinked when I realized the rest of the room was frowning at me. "What?"

"She gave herself a new name?" asked Puck, a stupidly astounded expression on his face.

"Yeah." I lifted a shoulder and let it fall in a careless half-shrug, perplexed by my friends' confusion. "She's not Emily and she's no longer Lucy, so…why not?"

"Why Quinn?" inquired Marley.

"Quinn was her middle name from birth. Fabray was the fabricated name given to her by her fake parents. Both are a part of who she is. She's Quinn Fabray, and you should all remember to call her that. Not Emily Stark. Not Lucy," I added to Kurt in particular. "She's Quinn."

"Kind of an ugly name, but alrighty then," snipped Rachel, her condescending gaze focused on the papers she shuffled before her.

I aimed a scowl at her. "Is there something shoved up your ass when it comes to her, Berry? Or is the reason for your unnecessary aggression towards her because you _need_ something shoved up you?"

There was silence, except for the snigger Kurt muffled behind his hand. Puck tried to hide his smirk, Marley looked back and forth between Rachel and I with wide eyes, Blaine and Kurt stared determinedly at the floor, and Brittany fixed her gaze and her small smile up at the ceiling. Rachel gaped open-mouthed at me, her cheeks flushed.

"That was…highly inappropriate," she eventually managed, in an uncharacteristically low voice. Her eyes were bright, and I felt a lump in my throat at the idea of making her cry.

Once upon a time, I used to make Rachel cry quite often. I had just joined the Revenants when we found her hidden away in a tiny town in Ohio. It had taken a lot of work to convince her the truth of her origins, and when she eventually returned to live at the base camp with us all, it was hard. She was a mouthy, spoiled, self-entitled brat with insecurities about the same size as her ego-inflated head. Considering I had only been sixteen and she fifteen, I hadn't quite learned to reign in my flaring temper yet. This self-doubting, overtly confident, easily affected girl had been the target of my rages and scathing insults on more than a few occasions, until we were eighteen years old and went on a mission that left us stranded in a freezing cold bunker for three weeks, hiding for our lives. The first week had been torture, but when we were attacked by a group of Citadel nomads who were looking for a fight, and I stood in front of a cowering Rachel kicking and punching with all my strength and defending her from four hulking men with malicious intentions, it had given some depth of gratitude to our relationship—particularly when the fifth nomad had snuck up on me, and Rachel saved my ass by smacking him over the head with her boot before stabbing him in the throat with a dagger. It had been her first kill, and after the initial blubbering, I comforted her. We actually had a real conversation for the first time, and though there was still a lot of resentment and anger there, it had given us a newfound sense of appreciation for one another. When we finally managed to make it back to our base, we remained friends. She was my confidant when I started hooking up with Brittany again, and I was the voice of reason when Rachel eventually began dating a boy from the university she went to, named Jesse St. something or the other, who turned out to be a total dick (which I had warned her about). We were good friends to this day, though every now and then, we managed to get on one another's nerves again.

I took in a deep breath, willing patience on myself. I glanced at the rest of our friends. "I think we've got enough information for Vester now, guys. Could you excuse us, please?" One by one, everyone rose to their feet without a single grumble. They were eager to get out of this room.

Once Rachel and I were left alone, I grimaced in anticipation. "I'm sorry, Rach," I said gently, sinking in the chair next to her so I could meet her teary gaze. "I was being an asshole. I'm sorry."

She shook her head, sniffing as she shuffled and stacked the papers before her, obviously trying to regain a semblance of her dignity. "It's fine. Obviously you're the one in need of something being shoved up you."

I gave her a scanty grin. "You volunteering?"

She rolled her eyes, but it had brought a smile to her face. "Please. That ship sailed long ago, Rosario."

"Sure, sure, Barbara." We both laughed, a little because of the absurdity of our code names, but mostly because it was a little awkward to remember that one time Rachel had been drunk and hit on me because Jesse was away on vacation and I'd had to deal with the repercussion of rejecting her for two weeks, until she finally got over her embarrassment.

"I know I'm just sensitive," sighed Rachel, and we both fell silent.

Rachel had not slept with anyone in over a year, ever since the love of her life had died during an ambushed mission in Vancouver. It had shaken our little family of Revenants up, and though many of us could at least mention his name aloud now, Rachel rarely did. She just went through the day with an occasional bittersweet smile on her face, the gold chain necklace he had given her sparking around her neck.

"I know," I murmured, and before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled Rachel into a tight hug. "It's okay. I'm sorry," I repeated, more seriously now. "I'm sorry."

She sniffed once. "I know, Santana. And in all honesty, I think she has a certain effect on you, which is why you snapped at me."

I leaned back to raise my brows at her, amused despite myself. "Why would she affect me? I mean, she _is_ hot as get out, but she's stubborn and mouthy."

Rachel pursed her lips, obviously attempting to suppress a smile as she stood, dabbing her shirtsleeve below her eyes to mop up any lingering tears. "Sounds like someone else I know."

I rolled my eyes, smirking as I stood too, and took the papers that she offered to me. "Whatever." Regardless of the comment I admittedly knew was true, I smiled at Rachel. "See you at yoga?"

Rachel nodded, a smile spreading on her face now. "Of course. How could I resist the opportunity to show you up?" she teased, and I chuckled as I followed her out of the meeting room.

"I'll take these to Vester and meet you there," I told her, and Rachel nodded again before heading off the opposite direction, while I headed for Sue's office.

After spending ten minutes informing Sue of the overview of the meeting, I had to rush to yoga, considering the meeting had taken a little over two hours. I was amused to see that Rachel had stolen my typical place directly behind Brittany. I had once liked that spot because it was a prime position to stare at Britt's ass, but since we had broken up, it was mostly appealing because Brittany would always shoot funny faces at me upside down and make me laugh. Rachel playfully stuck her tongue out at me as she stretched her arms upward, and I shook my head in disapproval, laughing quietly under my breath as I set my bag down and took Rachel's usual spot beside Marley.

As yoga commenced, I couldn't help but to have my thoughts wander towards Quinn again. I hadn't seen her at all since she blew up on me this morning. I hadn't seen her at lunch or dinner, and wouldn't be surprised if she had refused to go simply out of spite. Sue wouldn't be too concerned about making certain Quinn was fed, so I could guess what Quinn had been doing all day. Sulking in her room, starving but too stubborn and prideful to go get herself something to eat.

Once I'd made my way back to my room after yoga ended, I called the local pizza place and ordered a couple pizzas, instructing them to deliver to Brittany's room. Brittany was situated near the entrance of the fortress, and was therefore the only one who could pick it up undetected by Sue's guards. After I texted Brittany to request her to pick them up for me in around twenty minutes, I showered, dressed, pulled on a robe and started for Britt's room.

Brittany had already opened one of the pizzas and ate two slices, which I had expected and was the reason I had even ordered an extra in the first place. I left it with her and took the other untouched box with me, up the stairs and directly to Quinn's room. After waiting a beat after I knocked, the door pulled open, and Quinn's face contorted into longing once she smelled and spotted the pizza. I tried my best to contain my amusement at the way she tried to immediately wipe her countenance clean so she could stare at me with a bored, unaffected expression and say, "What do you want?"

I lifted the box. "I have an extra pizza, didn't know if you wanted it. Considering the fact that you didn't eat today, I figured you were hungry."

Quinn sniffed, her head held high and her nose in the air, though I suspected that was partially because she was following the delicious fumes of pizza rising higher. "As flattering as it is to hear you've missed my presence—and it's not—I'm not hungry."

My hair was still damp from the shower, and fell over my shoulder in thick, wet hunks as I tilted my head, giving Quinn a sincere, innocent expression. "Are you sure?" I opened up the box, and the explosion of the cheesy, doughy aroma seemed to blast free with enough force to cause Quinn to visibly suppress a moan. My brow arched, my lips quirking into a half-smirk. _Interesting, _I thought I observed the way she bit her bottom lip, her brows pulling together as though she were trying hard to stop her eyes from rolling into the back of her head. "It's just, I've already had dinner, and my fridge is full, so it'd be such a shame if it all just went to waste…"

Quinn sniffed again, extra haughty this time as she drew herself up. It was a credit to her stubborn will, how she ripped her gaze away from the pizza to instead glare coldly into my eyes. "I don't even like pizza, so, no. I'm fine."

"Damn," I said cheerily, thoroughly enjoying myself as I reached over and pulled a slice of pizza out. Quinn's gaze zeroed in on the action, watching the long, cheesy string that was pulled and elongated until finally snapping free and seeming to float down to hang limply over the box. "That sucks. I mean, I feel really bad for you, I always feel bad for anyone who doesn't like pizza, because it really is one of the best things in the world. Especially this pizza, from Jerry's Palace." I closed my eyes and let my mouth sag in exaggerated bliss once I took a bite of the pizza, chewed and swallowed. "God, it just…it's seriously the best pizza in town, you know? Five stars." I watched her, utterly entertained as she stared back at my mouth, a definite cloud of sadness and longing etched into every line of her face. My voice was muffled as I added, "I actually think this is the place J-Law likes to go for all of her basic pizza needs, and I think we all can agree that woman really knows her pizza."

"Fuck. Give it here." Quinn snatched the box out of my hands and turned to plop herself down on the foot of her bed, immediately diving in and bringing a slice to her lips. I leaned against the doorjamb, watching in hilarity as her expression morphed into one of pure contentment and joy as she chewed slowly, savoring the taste. "_God_, this is good pizza," she whined. She took another bite and moaned, and my stomach clenched. My heart beat a little faster as I ran a hand through my wet hair, trying to get my mind off the fact that she had a very sexy moan, husky and low.

Since she was distracted with stuffing her mouth full of pizza, I moved into her room without permission, easing down onto the foot of the bed next to her, with the box between us. I pulled another piece of pizza out for myself as I smiled merrily at her, my eyes twinkling, when she glared at me.

We ate in silence for a while, and it wasn't until Quinn had finally finished her sixth piece that she let out a groan and lay back on her bed, flopping her arms out wide. "You're right. That was some really good pizza," she said after a minute, breaking the silence again.

"Of course it is," I said chirpily. "I have exquisite taste."

"You're cocky," stated Quinn, and without looking at me, lifted a hand to point at my face. "I don't like it."

I smirked, leaning on my elbows to settle into a more comfortable position. "Or you do, but you just act like you don't."

One of her eyebrows arched up, and she finally turned to face me, rolling onto her side. "And why would I do that?"

I shrugged. "I kicked your ass the other day, and therefore you have to hate me, at least until you kick mine and we're equal. Which will never happen," I added smugly.

Quinn's eyes narrowed. "Okay, first of all, you did not kick my ass. You hit me from behind, which is cowardly and cheating. I never even had a chance to fight back."

"Even if you did, I still would've kicked your ass. And your competitive-to-a-fault spirit doesn't allow you to be friends with your self-declared rival until you feel like you're on equal footing with her." I rolled over too, grinning tauntingly at her as I cupped my cheek in my hand, leaning into it for support. "Which, like I said, will never happen."

"Please." My smirk widened in response to the sneer she aimed at me as she reached behind her, took the water bottle that sat atop her nightstand. "I eat girls like you for breakfast."

"Wanky," I said, arching my brow higher, and Quinn flushed. Funny, she hadn't struck me as a particularly innocent person, but it was entertaining to see her blushing over an essentially harmless dirty comment.

"That didn't make you seem gay at all," she countered bellicosely.

Of course she would naturally assume I was straight. Wasn't that everyone's default? Straight-until-proven-otherwise? My smirk faded into a small smile, amused more than hilariously delighted, now. "You do realize I'm actually gay, right?"

She spluttered, choking on the water she'd just taken a drink of. "Oh—I—" She appeared almost fearful, as though she didn't want to offend me. Or, God forbid, that little wariness that entered her eyes was her wondering how to break it to me that she didn't go that way.

I rolled my eyes, sitting up. "Jesus, relax. Just because I'm into women doesn't mean _all _women."

"No, no, I know," she said, but she seemed so flustered. Her face was beet-red as she sat up and looked down at her hands, twiddling her fingers together, fidgeting.

I stood, narrowing my eyes at the way she was reacting. "Have you ever met anyone gay before?"

"Yes!" she nearly snapped, glancing furtively at me before focusing her gaze back on her lap. She was picking at the bandage wrapped around her hand, probably from the injury she'd received at the bar when the mini-bomb went off. "I was friends with Kurt," she mumbled.

"Right," I said, remembering that they knew each other and that was the whole reason I had discovered Quinn in the first place. I added curiously, "But have you ever met a girl who's into just girls?"

"No," said Quinn in a small voice.

I sighed, sitting back down. "I'm a lesbian. Which is nothing to be weird about. Just because I like vagina doesn't mean I like yours, and I'm not going to show up with a U-Haul if a girl expresses interest in me."

Her brow knitted together and she looked genuinely befuddled for a split second, until comprehension sharpened and widened her hazel eyes and her mouth fell open. "Oh my G—I don't—I'm not expressing interest in you," she blabbered, the color draining out of her face.

"God, I _know_," I said, struggling to control my temper as my patience threatened to dwindle away. "Fuck's sake Quinn, I know you're not gay. Why are freaking out?"

"I'm sorry," she breathed, closing her eyes. She opened them after a beat to see me scowling at her. "It's—it's not you, I just—I don't know," she trailed off feebly.

"If you're so insecure about your own sexuality that you have a panic attack when you find out someone's gay, you need to get your own priorities sorted the hell out first. Here's a start—you have a lovesick Chang drooling after you, and he's mildly attractive and seems more than willing to put up with you. Maybe you should go for him."

"Stop it," said Quinn flatly. "You're not funny."

"I'm not trying to be. The guy is clearly in love with you; any specific reason the feelings aren't reciprocated?"

"That is none of your fucking business," snapped Quinn, and despite the anger in her tone, there was a guarded pain in her eyes as well. I got the feeling she was probably used to this third-degree.

I took in a slow breath, reminding myself of my training. Of reigning in my temper and the urge to bite and sting, and to instead collect myself, to be calm and take control of the situation. Quinn was right. This was not my business, and I had no right to know why she didn't return his feelings, nor did I have any right to even ask her such questions.

The amount of self-control and humility it took to say the next words gave me a bitter taste in my mouth, so I stood up, ready to leave. "I'm sorry." Fuck, how many times would I have to say that today? "You're right. Not my business. I apologize."

Quinn remained where she was, her brows drawn together and her lips puckered slightly, torn between her anger at me and her surprise over my retreat.

"Look, keep the pizza. And I'm sorry that you can't see your_ friend_," I said, adding extra emphasis to the word, "but it's out of my hands. It's up to Ves—Sue Sylvester, and she's not the type to just let out an enemy of our people that quickly, without at least trying to get all possible information out of him first."

"He doesn't know anything!" said Quinn, jumping to her feet. Her voice was suddenly hoarse and her eyes bright. "Neither of us—we never would have imagined our families could be involved with people like you."

I frowned immediately. "People like me?" Bristled, I took a step closer to Quinn, ignoring the way her expression tightened when I stepped into her space, hardly a foot apart as I spat out, "My people are _good people_. We care about the welfare of this country, we care about the safety of innocent civilians, and about protecting their privacy and their rights from people like your family, who kill and scheme and do anything they can to get their pockets fat, no matter how many people they have to fuck over on the way to get there!"

To her credit, or perhaps her stubborn stupidity, Quinn did not back away from me. Even after all that had happened, even though she was effectively a prisoner here and I was the one who had helped kidnap her, she did not cower from me. In fact, she leaned even closer, so close that I could see the ivy speckles in her eyes, cast in shredded shadows from her long, tawny lashes. I hated the way her beauty was so overwhelming, the way it seemed to make my heart pitter-patter its way into my throat, the way I could practically taste the butterflies that rose from my belly. Sometimes you come across those exceptionally beautiful people in life who seem to jam your senses and render you paralyzed, and Quinn was one of those people.

"You are all are a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Who kidnaps people and takes them hostage?"

"Your parents," I answered savagely. Rage had urged me to say it, but now at the stricken expression on her face, I felt regret trickle into me. "Shit," I cursed, instantly pissed at myself, when Quinn, an ominously blank expression on her face, sank back down onto the edge of the bed. "Fuck, Quinn, I'm sorry. I didn't—that was low. I'm an asshole. I'm—" I was at a loss for words.

Quinn didn't answer. We were both immersed in an incredibly stifling awkwardness, and I grew so uncomfortable I found it difficult to breathe normally. I cleared my throat and shifted my weight on my feet, leaning a hip against the doorjamb as I struggled to think of what to say.

"You know, I've seen a dead body before."

I blinked, so startled and perplexed by the random statement that I could do no more than stare at Quinn with my mouth slightly parted in my surprise.

"When I was thirteen," said Quinn hollowly. "I was at Mike's house. I always went to his house after school, so we could go to ballet lessons together. There were these guys who worked for his father….we'd see them every now and then sometimes, in and out of the house. They were carrying this black bag that looked heavy. They were having trouble carrying it up the stairs, and were swearing at each other. One of them lost his grip, and the bag fell. I saw a hand fall out of it."

I had seen my first dead body at the age of six, but that was different. I was raised in an environment cultivated by war. I could scarcely imagine thirteen-year-old Quinn's expression upon seeing something so traumatizing.

"Was it…connected to a body, or…?" I asked tentatively.

Quinn shrugged. "I don't know. It's just, I thought that Mike's dad was in a mafia or something. I thought my dad didn't know."

"Mike's dad is in a mafia. Or affiliated with one, anyway. What did he say about it?" I was curious now. Despite all the interrogating Mike had been going through the past week, we hadn't gotten any information out of him.

Her eyes flickered up to me, wary and guilt-ridden. "I didn't tell him."

"Why not?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could, there was a quick succession of raps on the door. Before we could so much as move, it pushed open by none other than Sue Sylvester, who swept in as though she owned the place (which, of course, she pretty much did).

"Santana Lopez," she said flatly, not a bit surprised that I was in here. I scowled immediately. She had probably been keeping watch over Quinn's room, Watching who went in it, and if Quinn went out of it. She turned her narrowed eyes onto Quinn. I had to give Quinn more credit, impressed despite myself at how she didn't so much as quail beneath Sue's sharp gaze. "Emily Stark. I need to speak to you. In private," she added, casting a stern glance at me.

My scowl deepened, but I stood straight and rigid as I respectfully bowed my head at Sue, then nodded briefly to Quinn. I paused at the door, saw Quinn looking at me. I could see the slightest flicker of emotion, of reluctance. Enough to make my brows furrow as I closed the door behind me, leaving Sue and Quinn to their meeting. Why did Quinn give me that look? Had she meant to? Was she upset she didn't get to finish speaking to me? Was she upset she was left alone with Sue? Was she upset that I was leaving?

But that'd be stupid. Why would she be upset I was leaving? If anything, she should be happy. We weren't exactly getting along.

And yet…I wanted to get along. Or at the very least, continue to get to know her. This was Emily Stark, the ghost child of the Revenants. Shue had spoken about her as though she was a lost angel, and the rest of our people had whispered of her like she was a ghost. I didn't remember her, but my entire life, looking at so many pictures of her, whether standing in the playpen smiling at me, or being held in Shue's arms, or that one picture of her as a newborn with her smiling mother, I had felt as though she were real. As though I knew her.

Now that she really was real, flesh and blood as proof in front of me, I couldn't help but to want to actually know her.


End file.
